Some 3,693 new cars were sold in August as against 3,093 last year. This brings sales for the year-to-date up to 68,300 only 7.5 percent behind 2012's total of 73,837 for the same period.
Commenting on the latest statistics Motorcheck.ie Co-Founder Shane Teskey said it's encouraging to see a sustained increase in new car sales for August. "Clearly the 132 number plate has injected confidence back into the sector with consumers now starting to take an active interest in the financial benefits of buying a new car. This will benefit the used car market over the coming years as our reliance on the UK market starts to subside."
The top selling brand was Volkswagen with 482 (13% market share) units registered. Skoda came next with 348 (9%), followed by BMW with 348 (9%). The remainder of the top ten were Ford - 321 (9%), Toyota - 308 (8%), Hyundai - 365 (7%), Audi - 227 (6%), Opel - 188 (5%), Kia - 147 (4%) and Dacia - 145 (4%).
The BMW 5 Series was the top selling model with 239 units sold in August equating to a 6 percent share of the market. In second place came the Volkswagen Golf with 163 (4.4%) units followed by the Skoda Octavia with 137 (3.7%) sales.
A new entrant to the top 10 was Dacia which posted an impressive 120 sales for its Duster model putting it in fourth position with 3.3 percent market share.
Some 20 percent of registrations, equalling 767 vehicles, were registered on the last working day of the month.
